I have officially lived more of my life outside of New York State than in it. Considering the first 18 years of my life – minus a one-year stint in Hollywood, Florida – were spent in the Hudson Valley, I don’t think the New Yorker in me will ever go away.
I grew up about 90 minutes north of New York City, surrounded by trees, woods, and plenty of nature where I could, and often did, get lost. The first time I ever traveled into New York City was about six weeks before my 21st birthday.
When I say I sometimes miss New York, I am thinking of two distinct things – the variety of food and the trees. The people I know in western Nebraska don’t really understand the amount of trees I grew up around and how nature was always, and often literally, right outside my door.
Right now, I’m missing the trees.
In the video above, you can see the sheer amount of trees and the beautiful colors that emerge every Fall. I have been to all the locations identified in the video. At 7:25, you will see Arlington High School where Paul taught for three years before we moved to Nebraska. When we left, they were expanding to hold 3,200 students from the 2,300 they had. At the time, it was the largest public high school outside of New York City.
At 13:36, you can see the Moodna Viaduct at Salisbury Mills. I traveled to New York City via this rail line and the views from the train are breathtaking and spectacular. For the short time you’re above treeline, there will be a smile on your face with awe and wonder in your eyes. It is the highest and longest trestle east of the Mississippi River. At 15:35, you get a sense of just how freaking cool it is to ride on the train there. This is all on the west side of the Hudson River.
At 17:25, the video shows you the east side of the river. On the east side, when you ride the train, there are parts of your journey where you are right next to the water. You can see just how close at 24:51. Fun fact about Bannerman Island – the Hudson River used to freeze and you could walk out to it in winter.
The video below is mostly shots from the lower Hudson Valley (closer to NYC), but it’s still gorgeous. I have stood at the spot at 2:57. It is really something to behold.
I grew up in Middletown, which is in Orange County. It’s also in the Hudson Valley. The next video made me smile a lot. It begins on the grounds of the Middletown Psychiatric Center, where my mother worked for 27 years before retiring and then working for 10 more years at the local hospital’s behavior health unit. At 10 seconds in, the brick building you see is one of the buildings she worked in. All of the homes, left and right, were for the doctors who worked there. When it was originally built in 1874 and for most of the facility’s life, doctors lived on grounds, usually free of charge. The videographer is leaving the grounds via “the back way.” The main entrance used to stop people and ask them what their purpose was on grounds. If you came in the back way, you didn’t have to deal with questions.
Naturally, I looked at a couple of other videos and traveled down memory lane in the video below. The historic Paramount theater, at 3:07, is where I saw my first movie, Gentle Giant, with my grandma. At 4:02, you can see Orange County Trust Company on the right. This wasn’t our bank, but they were they had Susan B. Anthony dollar coins on the first day of availability in 1979. My grandma got me, my sister, and my aunt each one. I carried it in my pocket until some asshole stole it from me in February 1996. At 5:37, when the video heads uphill, yeah, that’s part of my route home from school. Downhill and level on the way to school. Uphill all the way home. At the top of that hill is the armory (6:09), which became a radio station. After the turn, you pass the synagogue, Temple Sinai, where I got to see Scott Gerson’s bar mitzvah. The road it is on is also known as the “old rich” area because the rich folks, who were here in the town’s beginnings built their swanky homes here. The YMCA is also on this road. We couldn’t afford to go when I was little. My street, Wallkill Avenue is at 12:24. Turn left, walk a block and a half and it’s right next door to the fire substation. The video ends about three blocks before Fancher-Davidge Park. That’s where I learned, in 1975, why our park still had two sets of fountains and two sets of bathrooms even though the signs were gone. I’m sure my grandma loved having to explain that to a 5-year-old, who had many follow up questions. She didn’t lie to me about any of it. I never understood the hate then and don’t understand it now, but I digress. I’m looking at trees.
But let’s get back to fall foliage and the beauty around where I grew up with another video. At 19:50, is SUNY Orange. It was Orange County Community College, but became part of the state university system sometime after I moved away. The video ends right at a left turn, where you can see the Time-Herald-Record newspaper building. Middletown has had a newspaper of one kind or another since 1851.
One final video is the Hillside Cemetery. You can see The Record’s property again and get a sense of how big the paper used to be. It’s about three or four times the size of the Star-Herald in Scottsbluff. You can read about the cemetery’s connection to Central Park in New York City on the cemetery website.
Ninety-eight of Middletown’s first settlers are buried at Hillside Cemetery, including members of Middletown’s most prominent families. Several thousand people are buried there and represent a large amount of Middletown’s local history.
Thanks for taking a trip down memory lane with me. Sometimes, I miss New York. I’m still on my journey to discover where I truly belong. Despite its stunning beauty, I do not belong in New York, but the soft breezes and the ability to lay on the ground and watch the colorful leaves drop from the trees will always be a serene escape into special memories.
Then again, perhaps my therapist might be right when she quoted Maya Angelou. “You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all.” Maybe I belong nowhere and everywhere. I guess only time will tell.